


What You See is Not the Truth

by DilynAliceBlake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Incest, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, conflicted feelings, holmescest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24429151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DilynAliceBlake/pseuds/DilynAliceBlake
Summary: Sherlock has spent his whole life pining over Mycroft- Not that he'd dare let Mycroft know it.  Some years he handled it better than others.Kindly and wonderfully translated to Chinese by RF_lizPart one: https://benlaiwuchen814.lofter.com/post/1fcc5cc4_1c97dad9bPart two:https://benlaiwuchen814.lofter.com/post/1fcc5cc4_1c97e6432
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes, Mylock - Relationship
Comments: 17
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock is eleven when he realizes he's doomed to be alone forever. Once he notices, he supposes it should have been obvious far sooner, but the idea of romantic entanglements hadn't exactly come up before then. The problem is, Mycroft. How is Sherlock to be expected to develop an interest in any of his peers when sodding Mycroft went and set the bar for stimulating company and conversation so high? Sherlock doesn't want to end up with just anyone. He wants someone who makes him feel clever.

Other people don't make him feel clever the way Mycroft does. It's like watching a toddler be impressed by the basics of color theory, the way they fawn over what are to him just the basics of existence. Yes, yellow and blue make green (clearly) and Mr. Stately is (obviously) having an affair- What's all the fuss about?

Mycroft knows, when Sherlock tells him, that the really impressive bit was knowing that Mrs. Stately's mother already knew but had neglected to tell her daughter.

"Why didn't she?" Sherlock inquires, certain that Mycroft will know this, for he is always a fount of knowledge and answers.

"Sentiment," Mycroft explains. "Her daughter was happy- if she knew the truth then she might not be. Balance of probability says a woman will be upset when her husband cheats, so breaking the news-"

"But he was cheating whether or not she knew!"

"Yes, and all the clues were there. She lives with him. Why didn't she see them?"

"Because she's stupid," Sherlock asserts.

"And she didn't notice the change in his spending, the smell of perfume, the late nights? No, Sherlock. She didn't know because she didn't want to. Sometimes when faced with a truth we don't want to see, our brains look around it."


	2. Chapter 2

At the time it had seemed outlandish, that he could go about just  _ not noticing _ something because he didn't like it. Now though, he sees the truth.

People had been commenting on how his clinging to Mycroft was 'odd' instead of calling it cute for two and a half years now. Mummy had been insisting that he sleep in his own room during his brother's rare visits, cutting the time Sherlock and he spent together by- And there it was. He had calculated the percent of time lost because he and his brother spent nights sleeping in seperate beds. 

It was a crush. Sherlock had a bloody _crush_ on Mycroft, and nevermind that it was normal, that he would be expected to grow out of it, distance didn't help and time probably wouldn't either. And Mycroft would keep indulging him, Sherlock knew. It had already been proven by the nights Mycroft had let him sneak into his room to sleep and the extra breaks he would take from school and job training to drive down any time Sherlock called when he'd been crying. (Mycroft always knew, somehow, when Sherlock had been crying, even if he wasn't any more when he finally called.)

So Sherlock was clingy, and physical distance wasn't alleviating his adoration the way his parents had hoped- and Sherlock hated that they clearly knew. They'd been saying things like "give your brother a break," and, "let Myc have some space to get settled before you bother him" and "a boy your age ought to be increasing his independence."

So Sherlock's heart and eyes had gone and set themselves on Mycroft, rather than any of the insipid fishbrained simpletons he shared his school with.

It was fine when he hadn't realized, but now that he knew there was every chance Mycroft would  _ know _ he knew, and that could only make things awkward.

So, the result wasn't what he desired- the variables had to be changed. He was going cold turkey- no more Mycroft.


	3. Chapter 3

Step one- don't be in the house when Mycroft was scheduled to call.

Revised step one- Don't be in the house any time Mycroft  _ might  _ call.

Sherlock gets one very worried letter and then any time Mummy holds the phone out to him responds by half shouting 'I'm fine,' and quickly leaving the house. He strips the three mobile phones Mycroft sends him for parts to get the point across and starts burning any letters (once he's read them). They attribute it to adolescent mood swings and seem almost happy he's developing interests of his own.

Then puberty hits and Sherlock has to step his behavior up from disinterested to sharp disdain. He  _ cannot _ let things remain as they are, and the easiest way to remind himself why Mycroft's not attractive is to remind  _ everyone _ of what society deems to be his least desirable attributes.

The insults become more bitter and his experiments more absurd. Anything to distract from the truth at the heart of it all. There's a shouting match when Mycroft comes home four sizes smaller when Sherlock is sixteen. 

"I was 'portly,' as you are always so ready to remind me!"

He was luscious, is what Sherlock thinks privately, but that doesn't matter, because now his weight has gone down, and everyone else is taking notice of how brilliant and handsome Mycroft has always been. Mycroft has taken up smoking, wrapping his lips around the cigarettes and baring his throat to blow rings into the sky. 

Sherlock's experiments turn to chemistry as he takes up drugs. He can't stop himself lusting after Mycroft specifically, but with the right chemical cocktail maybe he can cease lusting after  _ anyone _ .

It takes a year and a half for Mycroft to find out, and during that time Sherlock's attempts and addictions were ever escalating. The wedge Sherlock had driven between them was doing a tremendous job keeping Mycroft out of his business, but eventually Mummy had noticed he wasn't attending his classes and sent Mycroft to check while he was in the city for work. Sherlock's dorm is rather incriminating.


	4. Chapter 4

"Is your roommate-" Mycroft starts to question, prodding at a needle distastefully, but he cuts off with a rather interesting 'gllk' sound when he catches sight of Sherlock's pupils.

Another instance of the brain trying to deny what we don't want to see, Sherlock muses, because his roommate dropped out nine days ago and had already started to come around for his stuff.

"Hello big brother," he slurs, and marks the experiment number with a heavy X in his notebook. He'd stopped taking detailed notes while under due to the link between inebriation and poor coordination. 

There's a lecture bordering on intervention, Mummy there with tears in her eyes, and Mycroft has the gall to demand how he could do this to himself and his brain.

Sherlock seethes and glares because how could he  _ not  _ when the alternative was ruining everything. 

Sherlock goes into rehab three times before they assign him a decent therapist and he doesn't bother to escape.


	5. Chapter 5

The files are only passingly private, and certainly they won't be permanently with the way Mycroft is climbing job ranks, so he has to be careful not to give anything away. But his attempts to eradicate his feelings aren't working, there are severe health risks, and honestly he is at the end of his rope.

So he makes up a story about a bad breakup, but ensures the basics of his dilemma are all there.

"He rejected me," he tells her, because maybe Mycroft hasn't yet, but the potential is inarguable. 

A name doesn't have to be made up because Sherlock refuses to mention it and risk tripping himself up or being caught out later in a lie.

There are long, boring discussions about moving on and living life without it revolving around romance.

"What if I can never find anyone else?" he asks one day when he's particularly maudlin, and gets asked if it's really so bad being single.

"You don't have to move on to someone else or even be over him, but you can't center your life around someone who's rejected you. You need to try living for yourself."

Sherlock has spent so long dreading Mycroft's discovery and rejection of him he never bothered to look much past that into what he would do with the rest of his future then. Obviously he can live without Mycroft- he's been doing it for years. He just needs to think like Mycroft has already seen through him. What he wants to do is kiss his older brother, but barring that...Perhaps he'd like to be a detective. There is that officer at the yard who took him in and listened when Sherlock told him what he was missing on the case from his holding cell. So there it is, he'll move forward with his life. He has a direction and an in.


	6. Chapter 6

John is nice- Having a friend and a live in distraction from his twisted up feelings and overactive brain is heavenly really, but whenever the doctor starts dating Sherlock can't stand to see him happy. It's such a glaring reminder that he'll never have that- his ideal partner forever out of reach by his own hand and the fate of genetics. 

He himself twisted what he and Mycroft had into this animosity between them. "He said he was your enemy," John told him, but Sherlock's greatest enemy is himself. His own heart which ever wants Mycroft closer as he pushes him away.

Moriarty shows up and for a blissful moment Sherlock has hope. Here is someone else as smart as him, and if Sherlock can just meet him maybe- but it's no use. Sherlock has long grown past just wanting someone clever. Mycroft's constant dedication to queen country makes him incomparably noble. His hovering and stalking make him caring and devoted. Everything Mycroft has ever done Sherlock has admired and disparaged in equal measure. It's no longer about his genius, it's everything down to the insipid umbrella and his insistence on straightening a door knocker.

Someone new isn't going to change that he is already in love.


	7. Chapter 7

As for the Irene Adler debacle, well...

"Sex doesn't alarm me."

"How would you know?" Mycroft taunts, and temptation beckons. How he wants to offer, "Let me show you," or dare him "Try me," but it has been nearly two decades of denying and fighting and hiding and Sherlock is not going to slip up and start flirting  _ now _ .

The Ice Man, ever untouchable indeed, but the way Mycroft swells with pride when Sherlock unlocks the phone makes him woozy and light headed.

He always refuses Mycroft's cases because he wants so very badly to take them. He could solve them, make Mycroft happy, keep running and begging for more compliments and attention like a puppy begging for a treat, but that would only lead exactly where he's trying not to go.

He'd be as bad as Molly, and part of him worries that if Mycroft knew then he'd be the one being told to fetch coffee and getting false compliments on his hair. Would that be worse than an outright rejection? He thinks that if it made Mycroft pretend he could have him, Sherlock might like the false hope. He can never bring himself to stop catering to the fantasies Molly keeps, at any rate. He supposes he should get some credit for not dating a parade of Mycroft lookalikes. The sheet in the palace was attention seeking enough.

"Don't apall me when I'm high, brother mine," he hisses because he is holding onto control by a string and he has to get Mycroft  _ out _ before he snaps and does something else that involves pinning him to a wall. 

"You were enjoying it," He accuses to tease, and Sherlock wishes it had been for different reasons. He entertains the fantasy a bit longer in the face of the flustered way Mycroft splutters his denial.

Mycroft thinks, during Sherrinford, that Sherlock is going to shoot him. It's picture proof that his deceit has been working, but it's heartbreaking to know that Mycroft legitimately thinks he hates him. Mycroft is, as far as Sherlock is concerned, the love of his life as well as being his older brother and a rock in the sea of chaos that is life. They discuss it, afterwards, while Sherlock is still shaken, and perhaps that's why he slips. Or maybe he's just tired of the elaborate play he's so long been conducting.


	8. Chapter 8

"You were quite fond of me, for a short while there, after Victor's disappearance when we sent her away. Then it felt like one day I turned around and you'd decided to hate me. Your face, when I suggested you shoot me-"

"I didn't expect you to suggest it. What an idiotic idea. Why would I shoot the-"

"The bane of your existence from the time you were twelve?"

"That's not what I was going to say. Besides, I was eleven."

Mycroft is thrown by the subject change. "You were eleven?"

"When I decided to hate you. Make you hate me. Well actually, I started by ignoring you. Your insistence is what forced the escalation; I suppose by then I was twelve."

"So all these years of animosity have been, what, because I didn't give you  _ space _ when you were a tween?" he scoffs.

"Tween- who says that? Are you trying to be cool, is that  _ hip _ ?"

"Point taken," Mycroft grumbles at the perceived jab at his age, and they don't talk the rest of the way to the mainland.


	9. Chapter 9

Mycroft shows up in his flat a week later, lips pressed and Sherlock's decade old therapist file on the table.

"The boyfriend was fake," Mycroft starts, and Sherlock rolls his eyes, because  _ obviously,  _ but Mycroft only speaks louder, like he has to speak now or lose his nerve.

"You hadn't dated anyone- still haven't to this day, I might add- but I didn't mention it at the time because whatever was going on, the rehab was  _ working _ . I didn't want to jeapoardize that just because you were bored and running rings 'round one of their therapists. You never gave a name-"

"Only lies have detail," Sherlock recites, trying to sound bored, but he can't look Mycroft in the eye because  _ this is it. _

"There's a note in the file. When she referred to this mystery man using different names, you responded to one and she felt like she invaded your privacy by discovering the name. I thought you were playing with her, but in that day's audio files-" and here Sherlock flinches because  _ of course  _ there would be more than the paper, which he'd combed meticulously for tells and deemed safe. There was no need to wonder why Mycroft would be reassessing his old files. Sherlock had practically admitted there was something to find.

"She used the nomer 'Mike.'"

"I could have been reacting to the idea of dating you."

"You could have- but you weren't. Or rather- you were. I never thought to look for it, but it's there."

With a shaky breath out, Sherlock sinks into the sofa.

"Sherlock-" Mycroft starts, and when he lifts his head to stare down his fate the tears are already gathering.

"You could have told me. You can't believe I would hate you just because you were attracted to me as a child. We could have begun mending our relationship-"

Sherlock lets out a strangled laugh, because the brain doesn't see the evidence it doesn't want, and Mycroft is still avoiding understanding.

"Twenty-two is hardly a child," Sherlock prompts, bitterness crawling up his throat. Just a little nudge, the pieces are all there. "Not that much has changed."

"Well you're sober, and living with John, so certainly your taste has improved."

"My taste is exactly the same," he says outright. "John is not gay, and I am still very much living my life for me instead of focusing on and orbiting around inevitable rejection."

"I doubt after all you've been through together he would reject you."

"You make everything so difficult. Stop over complicating.  _ My taste hasn't changed. _ You're looking for layers that aren't there. You've run out of secrets and I'd like to clear the air between us." There's the inkling of understanding Sherlock was looking for. Cracks spiderwebbing up Mycroft's worldview. The shattering blow comes more easy. "I am still, have always been, and very likely shall continue to be, in love with  _ you _ Mycroft. I can understand if that makes you uncomfortable, but aside from some occasional sulking, I go about most of my life these days fairly unaffected, so-"

"Still?" Mycroft repeats dumbly, staring down from Sherlock to the folder in his hands.


	10. Chapter 10

"Yes  _ still _ , although now that the cat's out of the bag, I suppose I can dispense with the insults. It's a wonder you never saw through them anyway, since there was a rather direct correlation between their severity, frequency, and my attraction to you-"

"Attraction- I thought you were just mocking me for trying when it was such a hopeless endeavor!"

Sherlock hates that he's now blushing.

"Ah... Quite the opposite really."

"I don't believe you," Mycroft decides, trying to reconstruct the lie that has been taken down. "I don't think I would miss you lusting after me."

"Oh the drugs certainly helped. Any time my eyes were dilated you started making sordid assumptions about the cause. Not that the cause wasn't sordid," Sherlock snorts.

Mycroft is scowling now.

"Oh," he realizes at Mycroft's pinched face. "You still think I'm making fun of you. Very well."

Sherlock stands and crosses the step and a half between them to clamber himself onto Mycroft's lap in the chair.

"Forgive the impropriety, but once you're convinced, I doubt I'll be allowed such familiarity and I'd like to enjoy it while I still can," he admits, and presses Mycroft's thumb to his already speeding pulse, positioning his brother's hand so that it's almost like Mycroft is voluntarily cupping his face.

Sherlock doesn't hesitate to lean in and touch their lips. It isn't much, but at the same time, it's  _ Mycroft,  _ so of course his stomach swoops and his eyes flutter closed. No matter what happens from here, he gets this kiss, and Mycroft is frozen in shock beneath him, so Sherlock continues to take advantage. This is all he's getting, and it's more than he's ever truly dared hope for, but it's also got to last him for the rest of his life, so the more there is to this memory before Mycroft snaps out of it, the better it is for him.

Greed gets the better of him eventually, and he tastes Mycroft's mouth with his own tongue, stroking over chapped lips to wet them, his mind and body seeking more. Mycroft jolts like he's been electrocuted and a flushed Sherlock is dumped to the floor.


	11. Chapter 11

He knows he must look indecent, legs splayed and eyes heavy, but he was just  _ kissing Mycroft _ , so as far as Sherlock is concerned he gets a pass.

"You-" Mycroft splutters, trying to articulate the revelation that has just been forced upon him.

"Mhmmm," Sherlock purrs, and dares to suck his bottom lip into his mouth, reliving the kiss in his mind's eye already.

Mycroft shudders and looks down at his own lap in surprise and horror.

"I-" he chokes, and Sherlock almost pities him.

"It happens when someone crawls into your lap and kisses you," he assures, but Mycroft is quick to argue.

"No it  _ doesn't!" _ he insists. "I'm the Ice Man!"

"Guess not," Sherlock banters, low and smug. Euphoria is still singing loudly in his veins- regret will come after he's masturbated to relieve some of the tension.

"I have to go," Mycroft announces, less a decree and more of a panicked exclamation on his way out the door. He really, Sherlock decides, has had no clue this entire time. Perhaps it wasn't fair of him to blindside his brother like that. Still, he knows how it feels to press their lips together as he straddles Mycroft's lap, so there's no way it wasn't worth it.

"Drugs don't help," Sherlock yells down the stairs after him, but his hands are already going to the fastening on his pants, and Mycroft undoubtedly  _ knows  _ that Sherlock is about to masturbate to what just happened, which makes the entire thing that much sweeter. 

Still, if Mycroft is unfamiliar with arousal, Sherlock pities him. He still remembers his own teenage years, and Mycroft is exactly the sort of stubborn to try and ignore the problem and simply will it away. If life is anything approaching fair then it won't work, and Mycroft will spend a miserable few days distracted until he gives in.


	12. Chapter 12

A job that handles as many lives as Mycroft's requires a certain level of disconnect from feelings, but Sherlock was in his lap, Sherlock doesn't just not hate him but has professed to be in love with him, Sherlock was in his lap with a jumping pulse and seeking tongue and Mycroft  _ liked it. _

The idea of someone in his lap is uncomfortable but the idea of dragging Sherlock back into straddling him is a discomfort of a completely different sort. Oh gods, does this mean his snippish reaction to John Watson might have been jealousy? He is going to have to reassess everything- his entire life, and every insult Sherlock has ever paid him, it's all completely different with this new potential data.

'Potential,' he scoffs to himself. There's nothing 'potential' about the hard on he's sporting or the way Sherlock had purred, sprawled out legs akimbo before him like a particularly desirable temptation.

There was attraction there, alright, and Sherlock had already spent years coming to terms with it.

Sherlock kissed him and Mycroft wonders if it would be cruel to ask him to do it again because experiments have to be repeated.


End file.
